A geogrid-based framework of agricultural zoning for planning and management of water & land resources: A case study of northwest arid region of China

• Published in: Ecological indicators Vol. 89; pp. 874 - 879
• Main Authors: Jiang, Yun, Zhang, Qing-feng, Zhao, Xi-ning, Wang, Li, Zhang, Xiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.06.2018
• Subjects: Agricultural zoning; Data-driven; Factor-cluster analysis; GIS; Self-organizing feature maps; Water & land resources; Self-organizing feature maps; GIS; Factor-cluster analysis; Agricultural zoning; Data-driven; Water & land resources
• ISSN: 1470-160X; 1872-7034
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.12.022

•Data gathered for the administrative counties were interpreted to geogrid.•The Geogrid-based PCA – SOFM scheme is the most effective, concise, applicable.•A agriculture water & land resources zoning framework of a larger area is explored.•The Northwest Arid Region of China was assigned to 5 county-level based zones. Agricultural zoning is recognized as an effective approach to utilization of agricultural water & land resources (AWLR), especially in a large-scale region. The main objective of this work is to explore a new zoning method of classifying and dividing the AWLR of a larger area such as the Northwest Arid Region of China (NWAR). In this study, models of AWLR zoning of the NWAR were constructed. Data on 13 selected indicators were gathered from its 394 administrative counties, and processed and imported into 227100 Geogrid files. Then they were analyzed through four contradistinctive zoning approaches. And zoning results were tested and validated. The Geogrid-based PCA − SOFM scheme is the most effective, concise, and applicable. Finally, the NWAR was divided into 5 AWLR zones which were delineated according to the climate and geographic features and the administrative boundaries of counties or county-level districts. This work has established a novel methodological framework for AWLR zoning of a large-scale area.